Under the Aegis of Two Blind Eyes
One of my oldest hobbies has always been watching people — watching the world — watching everything and everyone pass by me, and watching nobody notice my observations. It’s natural, really, for someone as introverted as I am; I am, in fact, the kind of person who can not be around his closest friends, in groups, for more than ten minutes without zoning. For the longest time, I just didn’t like people, and held no fondness for the company of others or the opinion of anyone, but that phase has since passed and, yet, I am still entertained by watching people.
It used to be to figure them (people) out. I have learned, in my experience, that everything I figured out from just watching . . . It doesn’t count for shit. Everything you see from a distance is like an art patron scrutinising a painting.
I used that analogy for a reason: a very specific one. You see, the common technique come about the Impressionistic era was to paint in such a manner that, from far away, everything seemed realistic and perfect, but being close to the painting revealed the truth; the truth being that, many times, there was no blending, just colours placed next to each other to create a gradient effect — an optical illusion. On an artist’s note, this lead to many of the trends of Post-Impressionism, and further on, Cubism, which broke down everything into rectangles to resemble reality, in a fractured sense of perspective — this is more apparent in the Cubist style pioneered by Chezanne, not Picasso. Anyway, I digress, for that is art history, and I am not discussing art history (as much as I love it).
From my position — uninvolved and far away — I thought I figured out many things about people. I amused myself with it, to be honest, as so many self-proclaimed outsiders will tout; people-watching, to them, is more a way to assert superiority and feed their sense of alienation and abnormality, and much less about the actual process. Call me pretentious, but I consider myself an expert observer of humans, and I have come to perfect many aspects of the hobby.
For instance, and on another tangential note, there is an interesting phenomenon that I have seen, many times. There is a certain art to being blatantly loud and seen, but, yet, remaining overlooked and unseen. I have a habit. I walk around, quite a lot, and, commonly, wear headphones (that are attached to a CD player). I have another habit. I sing along to my music, because I can. And I’m not subtle, at all. I don’t sing under my breath, and I don’t care who hears me. Anyway, sometimes I’ll sit under a tree and sing, and watch people go by. They know I’m there, and they can see and hear me, but they still pretend I’m not there, and go on with their lives. The sheer number of people who refuse to acknowledge the fact that I am singing is incredible. I mean, seriously, it’s something to behold to see the look on someone’s face as they pass me by, but don’t stop anything. Like a camper in the woods confronted with a bear, they attempt to remain calm, unafraid, and unshaken in order to keep the bear (me) from becoming enraged or excited.
It’s all a sport, though. It’s like bird-watching, almost, I’d say. Sure, I can spot a type of person a mile away, by the way they stand and walk and talk, the angle of their head and the expression on their face — you see them all, in time. And from that, it’s not hard to pinprick them with personality archetypes, and understand some very vague, general behaviour patterns. But, once a bird-watcher tries to live with the birds, what do you think the birds do? Keep on keeping on, as they say?
Everybody has their spots. I know I do. Even though I intentionally try and disguise myself, in a strange way, by wearing no one style and moving no one way: all that does is put me in a category of eclectic. All it really affords me is the completely inability to be casually labeled — I know people have tried, sitll try, and I don’t think any definite tag has been established for me, by anyone. I could be wrong, of course. But, again, I digress.
I still watch people, and I think I always will. In the streets, restaurants, and classrooms, in the theatres, concerts, and entertainment halls, in their cars and with their cellular phones — that they call cell phones and have forgotten what cell is shorthand for — and with their shopping bags full of clothes with spikes and clothes with stripes, clothes of velvet and clothes of cotton, clothes sprinkled with logos or band names, and in their complete ignorance of me watching them, I will always watch. When the results of my introversion are taking ahold of me, among my friends — close or casual — I will resign myself to watching them, listening and absorbing my surroundings.
On a slightly related note, there’s something frighteningly refreshing about losing enough consciousness of your self to fail to be able to give commands from your brain to your body. That is another topic altogether, though.
And even when they know I’m watching, what can they do? At worst, stop and ask me what I’m doing, or, per normal, continue on as they would without an observer. It’s not like I stare. I don’t like my eyes.
And as I notice every other paragraph is a digression, I know it’s over for this ramble.
It used to be to figure them (people) out. I have learned, in my experience, that everything I figured out from just watching . . . It doesn’t count for shit. Everything you see from a distance is like an art patron scrutinising a painting.
I used that analogy for a reason: a very specific one. You see, the common technique come about the Impressionistic era was to paint in such a manner that, from far away, everything seemed realistic and perfect, but being close to the painting revealed the truth; the truth being that, many times, there was no blending, just colours placed next to each other to create a gradient effect — an optical illusion. On an artist’s note, this lead to many of the trends of Post-Impressionism, and further on, Cubism, which broke down everything into rectangles to resemble reality, in a fractured sense of perspective — this is more apparent in the Cubist style pioneered by Chezanne, not Picasso. Anyway, I digress, for that is art history, and I am not discussing art history (as much as I love it).
From my position — uninvolved and far away — I thought I figured out many things about people. I amused myself with it, to be honest, as so many self-proclaimed outsiders will tout; people-watching, to them, is more a way to assert superiority and feed their sense of alienation and abnormality, and much less about the actual process. Call me pretentious, but I consider myself an expert observer of humans, and I have come to perfect many aspects of the hobby.
For instance, and on another tangential note, there is an interesting phenomenon that I have seen, many times. There is a certain art to being blatantly loud and seen, but, yet, remaining overlooked and unseen. I have a habit. I walk around, quite a lot, and, commonly, wear headphones (that are attached to a CD player). I have another habit. I sing along to my music, because I can. And I’m not subtle, at all. I don’t sing under my breath, and I don’t care who hears me. Anyway, sometimes I’ll sit under a tree and sing, and watch people go by. They know I’m there, and they can see and hear me, but they still pretend I’m not there, and go on with their lives. The sheer number of people who refuse to acknowledge the fact that I am singing is incredible. I mean, seriously, it’s something to behold to see the look on someone’s face as they pass me by, but don’t stop anything. Like a camper in the woods confronted with a bear, they attempt to remain calm, unafraid, and unshaken in order to keep the bear (me) from becoming enraged or excited.
It’s all a sport, though. It’s like bird-watching, almost, I’d say. Sure, I can spot a type of person a mile away, by the way they stand and walk and talk, the angle of their head and the expression on their face — you see them all, in time. And from that, it’s not hard to pinprick them with personality archetypes, and understand some very vague, general behaviour patterns. But, once a bird-watcher tries to live with the birds, what do you think the birds do? Keep on keeping on, as they say?
Everybody has their spots. I know I do. Even though I intentionally try and disguise myself, in a strange way, by wearing no one style and moving no one way: all that does is put me in a category of eclectic. All it really affords me is the completely inability to be casually labeled — I know people have tried, sitll try, and I don’t think any definite tag has been established for me, by anyone. I could be wrong, of course. But, again, I digress.
I still watch people, and I think I always will. In the streets, restaurants, and classrooms, in the theatres, concerts, and entertainment halls, in their cars and with their cellular phones — that they call cell phones and have forgotten what cell is shorthand for — and with their shopping bags full of clothes with spikes and clothes with stripes, clothes of velvet and clothes of cotton, clothes sprinkled with logos or band names, and in their complete ignorance of me watching them, I will always watch. When the results of my introversion are taking ahold of me, among my friends — close or casual — I will resign myself to watching them, listening and absorbing my surroundings.
On a slightly related note, there’s something frighteningly refreshing about losing enough consciousness of your self to fail to be able to give commands from your brain to your body. That is another topic altogether, though.
And even when they know I’m watching, what can they do? At worst, stop and ask me what I’m doing, or, per normal, continue on as they would without an observer. It’s not like I stare. I don’t like my eyes.
And as I notice every other paragraph is a digression, I know it’s over for this ramble.
posted by c.Jay Wrong at
2:01 AM
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